The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (TQEH) Clinical Pharmacology Unit was the first hospital pharmacology unit in Australia, and now provides both a routine diagnostic clinical service and an active medical research program affiliated with the Discipline of Pharmacology at The University of Adelaide. Our aim is, wherever possible, to combine both clinical service and basic research, so as to translate new research findings into new laboratory and clinical skills that contribute to state-of-the-art clinical care of patients.

Led by Associate Professor Betty Sallustio, the Unit’s research group focuses on the areas of heart disease, kidney transplantation and cancer. We aim to individualise drug therapy through the use of therapeutic drug monitoring, particularly of immunosuppressant drugs used in kidney transplantation and the anti-anginal agent perhexiline in cardiac care. Through research in these fields we strive to provide a better understanding of drug action, metabolism and disposition in patients with varied genetic makeup in order to better use these agents and tailor them to each individual, and to develop new therapies.

The stereoselective pharmacodynamics of the enantiomers of perhexiline

Sallustio BC, Somogyi AA and Milne RW

Metabolic Treatments for Heart Disease and Cancer

Altered cellular energy metabolism is an underlying feature of both heart disease and cancer. In heart disease, maladaptive changes in energy utilisation and storage contribute to a decline in myocardial function and structural remodelling. In cancer cells, changes in energy utilisation allow increased cell survival, replication and metastasis. In addition, some cancer chemotherapy agents cause myocardial damage. Therefore, it is possible that drugs designed for treatment of heart disease, may also be useful adjunct therapies in cancer.
PhD and Honours projects are available in two broad research areas:

Investigating the efficacy of new myocardial metabolic agents in the treatment of heart failure and ischaemic heart disease.

Developing new therapies for chemotherapy-induced myocardial toxicity in cancer patients.

The success of kidney transplantation depends largely on preventing rejection of the new organ, using a combination of immunosuppressant drugs. These drugs have narrow therapeutic indices and can cause renal, gastrointestinal or haematological toxicity. Due to significant variability in their elimination from the body, doses are currently individualised by targeting therapeutic concentrations in the blood. Despite this, rejection and toxicity still occur. Our research focuses on understanding immunosuppressant distribution into lymphocytes (the mediators of rejection) and renal tissue (a major site of toxicity), as a means of better predicting individual risk of rejection and damage to the transplanted organ.

PhD and Honours projects are available in two broad areas of research:

To investigate genetic variability in the pathways of immunosuppressant elimination in both kidney donors and recipients, to determine its impact on intra-renal and intra-lymphocyte exposure to immunosuppressants, and its association with rejection and long-term function of the transplanted kidney.

To investigate how pregnancy alters the pharmacokinetics of immunosuppressants in renal transplant recipients, and to develop biomarkers that may be used in conjunction with standard monitoring to minimise the risk of nephrotoxicity and graft loss during pregnancy.